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For the better part of the last decade the Los Angeles Lakers have represented everything an NBA champion should be. With five titles to show for the Kobe Bryant era, the Lakers have displayed as much poise and class as they have dominance, but of course it’s easy to show poise when things are going your way. On Sunday in Dallas, suffering through the most embarrassing loss of head coach Phil Jackson’s career, the Lakers showed neither poise nor class, and left fans wondering just how different this team might look when the lights go up on the 2011-12 season.

Even as the Mavericks talked about the importance of staying focused, even as they decided not to allow brooms into the arena for fear of giving the Lakers unneeded extra motivation, the Lakers were preparing to show NBA fans worldwide just what it looks like to completely lose your composure.

The first ugly play came with 9:06 left in the fourth quarter and the Mavericks leading 94-68. Lamar Odom gave Dirk Nowitzki a hard push in the back as he tried to set a screen, knocking over both Dirk and JJ Barea, for whom he was setting the screen. A Flagrant Two was called and Odom was immediately escorted from the floor by security. Less than a minute later, Andrew Bynum earned an early exit by throwing a pile-driver forearm into JJ Barea as he drove to the bucket and scored. Barea crumpled to the floor clutching his ribs and the crowd seemed ready to blow the roof off of the building as they directed their protesting boos at the exiting Bynum. After a few minutes on the floor, trying to catch his breath, Barea got up and made his free throw and the blow-out resumed.

"I wasn’t happy with the way our players exited the game, on Lamar’s and Andrew’s part," Lakers head coach Phil Jackson said after the game. "It was unnecessary, but I know they were frustrated, and Barea was one of the guys that really frustrated us tonight. Other than that, the Lakers will have to go back and put it back together, again, to have a team that comes back and challenges next year."

Lakers star Kobe Bryant has always had a great deal of pride, even in losing, and was less than impressed with his teammates’ fourth quarter implosions.

"You don’t want to see that happen," said Bryant. "You definitely don’t want to see that happen. You don’t want any of their players getting hurt. They played better than we did, so to make the game ugly like that where players can get hurt . . .you don’t want to see that ever. I think they can learn from that and that they regret doing that. It’s not something that you want to see in the game of basketball ever."

In the case of Odom, he was frustrated that Nowitzki wouldn’t let him take a practice free throw during a dead ball. Dirk jumped up and snatched the ball out of the air just short of the rim. It was on the subsequent play that Odom executed the flagrant foul for which he was ejected.

"I was a little embarrassed," said Odom, who was very tight-lipped after the game. "I wanted to feel the rim out, they were already up 30, and I didn’t mean anything by it."

It was less specific for Bynum, who just felt the need to lash out. Barea just happened to be the one in the way.

"I think it was more we were getting embarrassed, they were breaking us down, so I just fouled somebody," said Bynum.

To their credit, the Mavericks didn’t respond in kind. They took their licks, got back up, made their free throws, and went on about the business of sweeping what was left of the defending champs. As Tyson Chandler so eloquently put it, the Mavs have other things to do:

"That is unfortunate that those guys would do that because we’re all NBA players out there and we’re all playing the game and there is no need for that kind of stuff. We’ll move on and we’ve got another series to prepare for."

So now two of the top three teams in the Western Conference are out after two rounds, but it’s not the Lakers’ exit that should bother them so much as they way they exited. Plenty of people saw that the Lakers were missing the edge and drive that got them to the last three NBA Finals, but no one could have predicted the complete mental breakdown that led to two of their primary player being ejected for flagrant fouls. Where was the Laker pride?

You see, pride isn’t just about winning; it’s also about losing the right way. You can lose with pride, just as sure as you can win with pride. A proud exit is what we saw from Kobe Bryant, who looked Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Rick Carlisle and even Mark Cuban in the eye and said "good series." It didn’t mean the losses set well with Kobe, who was positively seething in the press conference after the game, it just meant that his professionalism and his pride were bigger than his anger or frustration.

It’s just too bad that Lamar Odom and, in particular, Andrew Bynum couldn’t followed Kobe’s lead. It was a sad way for the once-great Lakers to end their impressive run, and a sad way for them to send out their Hall Of Fame head coach.

Joe Smith Retrospective

Los Angeles Lakers big man Joe Smith is one of just three players who are still around from the 1995 NBA Draft, and while his season is over, he’s far from ready to hang up his sneakers. He talks with HOOPSWORLD about the best player he’s ever played with over the course of his career (including Allen Iverson, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant), who the next round of franchise players are, his future beyond basketball and the release of his new CD in this exclusive interview:

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Mayo Quietly Rebounding

Midway through the 2010-11 NBA season it looked like O.J. Mayo was on his way out of Memphis. His issues on and off the court were serving as more of a distraction than the young Grizzlies could take, and he went from starter to reserve to trading block in near-record time. After starting all 82 games for the Grizzlies in each of his first two years in the league, Mayo started just 17 times this season, and if it weren’t for the Grizzlies and Indiana Pacers missing the trade deadline he would now be wearing the yellow and blue of Indiana.

Instead, Mayo got his act together, started working hard again, became a much-needed presence for the Grizzlies off the bench. After slumping through February and March he bounced back in April, averaging 12.4 points per game and even starting twice.

{AUTHOR_BOX}"I made some mistakes, and he (coach Lionel Hollins) definitely knows I did make mistakes," Mayo told The Oklahoman recently. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want it to hurt the team. I feel like I’m a valuable asset to the team, and I just didn’t want to mess up anything we had going."

Slowly but surely, Mayo is regaining the trust of his head coach, even getting to start the third quarter of Game 3 in their series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. He would score 18 points in that game, helping the underdog Grizzlies take a 2-1 lead over the heavily-favored Thunder. That doesn’t mean he expects to start in Game 4.

"No, not at all. That’s not my role anymore with this team. It was an adjustment he felt was best for that night. I told Sam (Young, the player I replaced) to ‘Stay focused when you come in, be aggressive, don’t let it waver your confidence in any way. Just know we’ve got a close team.’ We’re like brothers. We can talk about anything on the court, off the court. Nah, I’m cool (with not starting)."

Very often a player needs to be traded or change teams to get a fresh start, but it appears Mayo and the Grizzlies might be ready to prove that old theory wrong. While still not as consistent as the Grizzlies would like him to be, he’s been a factor for them several times in postseason play, and he has the right attitude going forward.

"I’m happy things that I went through didn’t hinder our team in any way, that guys kept pushing. Our team kept getting better, and now in the postseason everybody’s playing well and we have a really good team."

Mayo has a long way to go, but his contributions have been key to the Grizzlies’ unlikely success. His perseverance is paying off, and it might just turn out the missing the trade deadline was a blessing in disguise for Memphis.

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